[LIS-Forum] ICSU calls for open access

[Subbiah Arunachalam]

Friends:

Here is a news report from SciDevNet.
http://www.scidev.net/News/index.cfm?fuseaction=readNews&itemid=2435&language=1

Arun

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Global forum for free sharing of research data planned
Wu Chong
24 October 2005
Source: SciDev.Net

[SUZHOU] A forum to promote the free exchange of information in the global
scientific community was proposed last week at the annual meeting of the
International Council for Science (ICSU).

The International Scientific Data and Information Forum — or SciDIF —
would help ensure that scientists in poor countries can access information
as easily as those in the North, said Roberta Balstad, chair of the ICSU
Priority Area Assessment on Data and Information.

Balsted stressed, however, that the forum is "only an idea so far". To
take things further, ICSU will set up a committee that during the next
three years will define how the forum should work.

An ICSU report published on 20 October raises some of the issues. It
recommends that all scientific data, whether produced commercially or
through public-private partnership, should be provided free or at low cost
for research and education purposes in both developed and developing
countries.

One way to make this possible, says Shuichi Iwata of the ICSU Committee on
Data for Science and Technology (CODATA), would be through an open-access
database.

According to the report, the poor access scientists in low-income
countries have to scientific publications makes it difficult for them to
learn about research in other parts of the world, and to find an outlet
for their own research results.

Also, not all researchers in Africa and other poor regions have access to
computers, says Balstad.

Even those who have computers at research institutes face "exorbitant"
costs in accessing information through the Internet and must put up with
an unstable electric supply, said David Mbah, executive secretary of the
Cameroon Academy of Sciences.

Balstad also said it was also important for researchers in developed
countries to be able to access information produced in developing
countries.

"Scientists in poorer countries can seldom build a strong digital database
to facilitate the flow of information," she said. "So we place great
emphasis on extending new technology, training and capability building in
developing countries."


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